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The idea: publish my answers to questions that are expected in screening interviews to save everyone's time.
Status: somewhat organized. May want to add more examples and organize more.
The Essentials
What are your career goals?
- I don't have a 'goal' or an end state that I'm working towards. I've found that software engineering is something I excel at and I feel home at.
- In terms of aspirations: I have a finite amount of time until I am no longer able to work and I’d like to use the time in a good way, on something worthwhile.
- Worthwhile means that the work is something I love and can do well and is about a cause that I identify with.
- What I hope to focus in the immediate future is to help growth in the vertical direction at the individual level and/or at the organizational level.
What are you really good at professionally? What are your strengths?
- Seeing and creating systems and structures; be it software, work process, or framework of thought.
- Thinking from first principles, asking penetrating questions; this might not be obvious as my voice is small. "Everyone's doing it is not enough reason" is my shtick
- Going deep and staying with a problem until it's solved; read source code, trace system calls, and inspect packets
- Autodidact; quickly get productive in a new tech stack as if I have prior experience
- Written communication; excel at short-term and long-term asynchronous communication from answering questions to maintaining wikis and documentation
Examples & extensions
- Learned Haskell, Nix, and Terraform, and set up a personal Kubernetes cluster in my own time for learning's sake.
- Answering questions and explaining things. Coupled with my drive to create order and write things down, this trait helps with disseminating my knowledge to current and future teammates.
What are you not good at or not interested in doing professionally? What are your greatest weaknesses?
- Speaking in a 'normal' cadence; I need time to think before responding and this may be a disadvantage when it comes to client-facing work
- Blogging or giving a conference talk hasn't been something I do proactively; recently started writing in a private space to build my muscle
These may be more like a quirk and less about weakness
- I tend to ask lots of questions before stating my opinion and that can be (mis)interpreted as a sign of dissent. To counter this, I try to state my intention in asking questions upfront -- “I’m curious…” or “I'd like to understand…” -- to make sure the conversation remains friendly. This might sound like I’m sugarcoating a strength, but I believe anything good can turn into something /not/ good if it’s done excessively or without consideration.
- I may take an overly detached or objective stance, which may come off as cold. I think there is room for me to grow in expressing loving-kindness at all times.